The Forever Purge 2021 Director, Everardo Gout

Remember when The Purge (2013) was released? It had a budget of $3M and pulled in $89M. A very nice return. The Forever Purge had a budget of $18M and you can see where the money has gone. It’s no surprise that Michael Bay has a producer’s credit. Says it all. It really does pull out all the stops and feels less like the next film in the Purge franchise but more a real stand-alone film.

This is a Blumhouse Productions film and those that know me, know I have a real soft spot for all things Blumhouse. So, I was looking forward to seeing The Forever Purge and seeing it on the big screen. It was worth the wait and well worth the Premier Seat ticket fee!

This is the fifth instalment in the Purge film franchise and, for me, it’s most political in message. Director, Everardo Gout is Mexican and that’s important to know when you learn the film’s premise.

Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and Juan (Tenoch Huerta) are fleeing the Cartel in their home country of Mexico. They enter America illegally and both, after a few months, have stable jobs. Juan literally has a stable job. He tends to horses for a rich, white American family, and he seems to have way with the horses. He works with people much like himself, immigrants, minorities or people that seem to be down on their luck or living on the breadline. Juan seems grateful for the opportunities he has in life due to his work. Some however, do not feel the same. On the night of the Purge, one of his fellow workers Kirk (Will Brittain) makes a comment about how the rich will get their comeuppance.

During their first Purge, Adela and Juan take refuge in a compound seemingly created to shield immigrants and minorities from the tyranny of those who revel in Purging. Guarded by quasi-military personnel, this pay-as-you-stay compound is vast, although so many seek solace in this place, it is overcrowded. All they need to do is survive, the next 12 hours.

Adela is stifled in this compound and needs air, so she walks up to the roof where the guards are, where they can see over the streets. They notice a huge vehicle which has a logo on the side of it, this vehicle, it turns out, has rounded up immigrants and those minorities, individuals whose fate we can only imagine will be a gruesome one as we can hear them screaming from inside this monstrous looking truck. From a speaker mounted to the vehicle we can hear a loud commentary. They are preaching a cleansing of America and that they are the Purge Purification Force (PPF), America for Americans. Sound familiar? They invoke a Forever Purge, a Purge that doesn’t end. It keeps going and going.

What’s interesting is this film is trying to make a very real political point. It can get a little confusing when you pull back the layers. The NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) have created the Purge, so they are the government. The people promoting the forever Purge are reacting against the government, who say the Purge should only last 12hrs, but in doing so are just enacting what the government wants them to partake in. Then we have the minorities, who are just trying to work and live a good life that are taken advantage of and are unappreciated that do not take to take part in the Purge. Reacting softly against the government’s wishes. Then you also have your all-American families that do not want anything to do with the Purge but believe it is people’s right to choose what they do, even if the don’t agree with it. All pretty layered and can be feel a bit fiddly in the way it is discussed throughout the film but ultimately it feels like it’s holding a mirror up to America, the America pre-covid I might add.

Adela and Juan survive the night of the Purge and it’s all over. If this were any other Purge film, the credits would roll, and we’d have been out of the cinema in record time. BUT, this is The Forever Purge, and those that have preached that message during the night, are living up to their word.

Kirk, and what appear to be other stable hands, have rounded up their employers and have them on their knees, begging for their lives. Head of the family Caleb Tucker (Will Patton) joins his family in pleading for their lives, not before making the point that Kirk and his bandits are just acting out exactly what the government wants them to. Good idea to annoy a lunatic, right?

While all of this is going on Adela returns to her work, but half of the employees are missing. It seems as if a lot of them had succumbed to the Purge, one way or another. While searching the rear of her workplace, Adela notices a goat trapped in a cage, she decides to try and release it, but in doing so, finds herself snared in an elaborate trap. Seeing that their trap has been sprung, two Forever Purgers emerge dressed in rabbit heads and wielding axes, their intent very clear. Luckily Adela’s boss Darius (Sammi Rotibi) comes along and saves the day, and they both taking care of the cottontails (and I mean ‘take care of’ in the Mafia sense). Unfortunately, police officers arrive on the scene and only see Adela and Darius killing our furry friends. They get themselves arrested and are taken away in police van.

Meanwhile, Juan has saved the day and rescued, most, of his employers’ family. Now due to the widespread chaos America is under martial law and eventually, due to the escalating riots and purging around every major city, Mexico and Canada open their borders for the next few hours and will allow any unarmed American to take refuge in their country. This is a lovely reference to all of that ‘wall’ talk certain people were talking about a few years ago.

Can Adela and Juan meet up with their friends in tow and make it to the Mexican border in time?

Wide-spread chaos, explosions, brutal deaths, gun battles, rabbit masks and some cheesy lines all went to make seeing The Forever Purge a horrific, ‘could-happen’, dystopic, but ultimately pleasurable watch. It is currently in cinemas nationwide.

And remember, “Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn. May God be with you all”.